This invention relates to warp knitted fabrics and more particularly to warp knitted fabrics with surface interest patterning.
Basic warp-knitting, to which this invention applies, comprises knitting on tricot or Raschel machines using basic plain stitches, for example, Jersey or Delaware stitches, or their well-known variations. These knitted fabrics are characterized by unvarying stitch formation; i.e., all stitches in a given course are identically formed, and each course is formed exactly the same as alternating courses before and after it in the fabric. The front-bar and back-bar stitch patterns are different, but each starts in one course, generally ends in the next, and repeats for succeeding pairs of courses. Basic warp-knitting permits very high production rates, but the fabrics have only plain surface aesthetics free of any surface-interest patterning. The prior art includes many techniques for forming surface patterns in warp-knitted fabrics, but all of these known techniques involve complicated variation in stitch patterns, the laying in of extra ends or the omission of ends in pattern-forming arrays, or like complications which diminish productivity and add to the cost of fabrics produced.